Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[lklundin]

Let me reinforce what Karen said, because this isn't written very often, and I figured it out independently. (Karen's only the second person I know who's stated it clearly.)

The fundamental economic problems with fission power all derive from this phenomenon: you're creating a soup of mixed chemicals, and it destroys nearly everything you try to use to contain it. This obviously leads to endless cost blowouts. The only way to avoid the cost blowouts is to just not worry about it, and let the reactor self-destruct and leak -- which was basically done during the Manhattan Project and the Russian equivalent -- but that obviously has its own problems (Chernobyl, poisoning everyone in sight, etc.), as well as being rather uneconomical due to the short lifespan.


Which, in turn, is due to the problem of transmutation, which is an insoluble problem of fission.

In most of industry, we go to massive time, trouble, and effort to purify chemicals and to remove toxic elements. A fission reactor inherently does the exact opposite: it un-purifies chemicals and adds toxic elements. Perhaps you can see why it can never, ever be economical.

Once I believed that fission was one solution to our CO2 pollution. That changed some years ago, when I got to meet a professional nuclear waste manager (from Belgium).

Over some of his country's beer, he explained all of the above to me. He paid for the beer, knowing that with the existing Belgian reactors he would never be out of a job.

 

[Buckminster]

They seem to have bolloxed-up the pricing in Europe - XP100DL is €70k cheaper than yesterday...

View attachment 381795

Not sure about $70k but French prices look $10k lower to me (Model S). Can anyone confirm.

M3 - LR AWD and above only available in France - not sure about prices.

 

[Artful Dodger]

So...WTF was Tusk all about?

it's L33T for T35K, or anything else you want it to stand for. Makes more sense than TSLA

 

[Artful Dodger]

The Chevrolet Bolt is going to be CRUSHED. Will be interesting to see how Chevy reacts.

I think Chevy recently stopped producing the Volt.

Yeah, like they CRUSHED the EV1.

Boy, these guys r dense.

 

[lklundin]

My immediate thought was that they will keep shipping overseas cars this quarter, no end of quarter USA rush. So they may have 500 million or even a billion in inventory on the water on March 31st. This is pushing through the next level and getting to 500,000 cars this year.
It’s a helluva roll of the dice. I may buy more the next couple of weeks, I have to think this no drive, but and return concept has been very popular.

An indication of that is the estimated delivery date for EU orders.
The current, German page still says March (LR AWD).

Btw, the base price of LR AWD dropped (about) 3k€, the old 5k€ EAP option is replaced by 3k1 € AP + 5k2 € FSD option.

 

[Artful Dodger]

350-500k Model 3s means a 2019 average weekly production range is 6.7k-9.6k/week range.

Actually, I think this means the Tesla has been at a 7K/wk run rate for Model 3s since Jan 0nd, AND that they plan to take only 2 weeks off form Production in all of 2019 (7*50 = 350). Remarkable. Dam the Shortsec, Full-speed ahead.

That's the bare minimum of State/Federal Holidays, so no major downtime planned for Fremont in 2019. All the CapEx is going to GF3/Shanghai, but also note it's just for the tooling. Plant+Facilities is being purchased with the Shanghail Bank debt, so not accounted for as a Capital Expense.

Cheers!

 

[Buckminster]

Fred...

To be honest, I can’t stand these constant price changes. It’s happening almost every month and it is getting so complicated to navigate.

 

[K_Dizzle]

Fred...

To be honest, I can’t stand these constant price changes. It’s happening almost every month and it is getting so complicated to navigate.

The economic term is perfect price discrimination

 

[schonelucht]

• Availibility of the 35k model, should unlock a lot of extra sales in the US : very positive.
• FSD is back but ambitions are scaled back notably and so are those for autopilot : neutral.
• Price drop on S/X but no increased volume guidance, indicative of S/X demand struggle : negative.
• Closing of sales points, presented as cost saving not customer experience enhancement : slight negative.
• Focus on service experience improvement but with little concrete measures : slight positive.

Wrt the shops. Word of mouth clearly is the best sales tactic ever for Tesla. I do not know one person who drove the car without immediately wanting to own one. In areas with dense Tesla ownership (California, Norway, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, ...) word of mouth is enough to generate the sales leads. If you are a professional in those countries, you know someone who will be a brand advocate period. In many other countries I am not so convinced this is already the case. Just over the border of the Netherlands in Belgium I regularly meet people who fall straight into the target consumer group but who have no experience at all with Tesla and, crucially, don't know anyone who'd demonstrate the car to them. I am not convinced that in those circumstances word of mouth is enough to grow sales as rapidly as Tesla's ambitions, not because of the car, but because of lack of mouths.

 

[schonelucht]

The economic term is perfect price discrimination

Price discrimination is one of the things we hate the dealers for...

 

[jerry33]

Perhaps, the SR and SR+ are listed at the same weight, but that could be due to dummy cells having nearly the same mass as live ones. If they are going for the most profit and cars now, then less cells would achieve that.

It depends on if the cost of cells is less than the cost of having different types of battery packs to install. This equates to additional inventory and production line change.

 

[jerry33]

Don't like black seats? You have to buy the SR+ in order to have the option to pay another $1000 for white seats.

Problem is, I don't like either. I love the grey seats in my S85. They are just the right colour.

 

[avoigt]

"While Elon Musk just announced that Tesla's Model 3 is available for the $35,000 price he's been promising for years, the plan isn't to stop there. On a call with the media to announce the move, as well as its new policy of selling cars exclusively online, Musk said that there will be a cheaper Tesla available in 2 - 3 years, but probably closer to three."

Elon Musk: Expect a cheaper Tesla in '2 - 3 years'

 

[Artful Dodger]

Very good question.

My guess is the 220 and 240 are both SR battery packs.

My guess is the 220 is a depopulated 240. Tesla can not afford to give away 2170 cells, esp. when there is no upgrade available to pay for the extra cost of cells.

 

[aubreymcfato]

It was a while that TMC didn't get his morning full nerod en (wink wink).
Love it.

 

[K_Dizzle]

Price discrimination is one of the things we hate the dealers for...

Unfortunately that’s how the game is played. Tesla knows thIngs like decreasing the price by x% increases orders by y%. They’re doing changes in order to get their preferred product mix.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Am I the only one who sees a mountain of slightly used Model 3's from people with no intention of keeping the car?

Their $35K cheque has to clear before they get to climb that mountain.

 

[Chocochip]

A bit old news at this point, (and sorry if this was already explored, I really can't keep up with this thread) but I just finished listening to the Tesla Daily podcast featuring the interview with Jake Fisher from Consumer Reports on the Model 3 reliability score, and found it quite enlightening, so I thought it might be beneficial to some of those who simply don't have the time.

TLR - The average reliability score for the Model 3 is not calculated as an average of the 17 different reliability categories, but rather it shows how this car compares to the reliability of all other 2018 models released by all other manufacturers.

Key takeaways:

• The vast majority of newly-released cars (2018 models) will not experience any major issues, particularly in their first year on the roads, so the comparison becomes much more granular and things like faulty door handles or strange cabin sounds may result in a different classification
• Jake was very careful to specify that a below-average reliability score does not mean the car is unreliable (meaning, it will break down and leave you stranded), but simply that on the scale of all other 2018 models it has on average more issues to be addressed than the median car; he agreed that this was not clear in their report and they will probably make changes in how they report these numbers in the future
• the reliability score is calculated by using different weights for different items, for instance faulty trim is weighed much lower than drivetrain issues; he also mentioned that it showed them that the Model 3 has a lot of what one may call cosmetic issues (trim, misaligned body panels, paint, etc.) compared to the average, in order to get that 2/5 rating
• As they only have data for a relatively short time span on new models, they use the reported issues to extrapolate on what is likely (and how likely it is) to go wrong in the next several years with those cars
• Jake reported that Tesla has been in touch and not only acknowledged the reported issues but, refreshingly, already addressed most of them; CR plans to issue a refreshed report by the end of the year; Jake expects this new report will again add the Model 3 to their "recommended" list, which in turn will attract them a lot of hate mail from the shorts
• Why the average of the 17 individual reliability categories is so different to the overall reliability score: the score for each category is determined by the percentage of reported occurrences of that fault compared to the number of cars for which they get feedback; a 4% fault rate (not sure if that's the actual value they employ) would attract a bad rating, but a 1% wouldn't, the car would get a green circle in that category; however, if most 2018 models only get around 0.2% faults for that issue, the car would stack up poorly in the overall rating; moreover, they only received feedback on about 500 cars, which they admit is a fairly small sample size
• Many of the suggestions the podcast interviewer made on improving the way these numbers are reported made Jake Fisher think and admit they could improve or change how they do things, which tells me that, first, their models are somewhat brittle, and second, CR are really not used to so much granular analysis of their reports and the feedback they got on this particular report was a bit of a shock to them; they agreed to make some serious changes across the board on how they do the numbers
• On the question of why the results of the report were disseminated ahead of time, allowing some parties to effectively trade on insider information, Jake was again surprised by how things played out, saying that they regularly send these reports to news organisations under an embargo to allow them to publish the news at the same time; they will talk to their legal team to see if that needs to change as well in the future.

The overall feeling I got is that the way the report was received was a shock to them, and they feel they were criticised unfairly. The press did run with the "below average" rating to claim that CR says the car is unreliable, which is not what they claimed, but it still attracted them a lot of hate from Model 3 owners and supporters of the company. They say they're only reporting the numbers they receive, but they will now try to provide more context in their reports and emphasise the individual issues they find rather than just giving an overall nondescript number rating.

The podcast is definitely worth a listen if you have the time, it runs at about 42 minutes.

 

[replicant]

The letter I read I thought said no more free test drives; now that I re-read it, it seems logical to me that they intend to not offer free test drives, but since it doesn't outright state that, I suppose that is still a mystery, but it seems to me they said they will not offer free test drives any more.

"To achieve these prices while remaining financially sustainable, Tesla is shifting sales worldwide to online only. You can now buy a Tesla in North America via your phone in about 1 minute, and that capability will soon be extended worldwide. We are also making it much easier to try out and return a Tesla, so that a test drive prior to purchase isn’t needed. You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free. With the highest consumer satisfaction score of any car on the road, we are confident you will want to keep your Model 3."​

$35,000 Tesla Model 3 Available Now

Launching an Uber-like fleet of autonmous Model 3 SR would be a great way for people to test the car, without the need to visit a store or talk to sale advisor. People would pay to test drive the car and get to their destination in the process.

Install the Tesla app with a $20 voucher, schedule a $20 drive, hop on the car, get an introduction video of the car and main features, enjoy the trop (interior, FSD and scenery,) do an "in-app" purchase if you want the buy the car, or top up your Tesla On-Demand Account if you prefer to rent than to own. Get out of the car and go on with your life!

 

[WarpedOne]

My guess is the 220 is a depopulated 240. Tesla can not afford to give away 2170 cells, esp. when there is no upgrade available to pay for the extra cost of cells.

There is no upgrade available YET.
If the cars are produced as 240 and sold as 220 ... at any later time Tesla can make "a special offer for you my friend ... for a mere 3k you can unlock additional 20miles of range and stronger acceleration".
I see lots and lost of 220 buyers that couldn't/wouldn't pay 37k at the start, but will upgrade in a few months.

I've been no-locked-battery SR proponent until I made the calcutains ... by offering locked 220 Tesla will make more money.
Who will not love to upgrade their car after some months? Delayed revenue and higher profits a bit down the road.